Maputo explorations - no map needed

We're just back from a few days in Maputo, Mozambique, scouting locations for our next annual gathering in June 2027. It is a city that rewards curiosity. We visited Scala, an old time cinema with original seats and film projector still intact, wandered through railway stations that still connect Mozambican ports to the rest of the continent, peeked inside the famous Iron House (by the same architctural firm as the Eiffel Tower), explored converted warehouses that are now cultural spaces filled with art and live music, and enjoying eating peri-peri flavored food under frangipani trees.

Maputo has an energy that is hard to describe but easy to feel. There is serious creative momentum here, a mix of Pancho Guedes' architecture alongside contemporary art spaces and informal areas alive with murals. We left with notebooks full of ideas and a long list of people we want to bring into the conversation.

We are not ready to share all the details yet, but we can say this: the gathering is taking shape, and the city itself will be a big part of the experience.

More to come soon. In the meantime, keep scrolling for updates on the AreteWorks programme, a new artist we are excited about, and a look ahead to Venice . . .

With energy and stubborn optimism,

ARETEWORKS UPDATE

Acting For A Smile, Benin

Photo : © Acting For A Smile

The AreteWorks storytelling workshop we held in Togo in May 2025 continues to reverberate. The workshop had a prize structure built in: the winning filmmaker received $1,000, plus a $1,000 donation was made to the conservation organisation chosen by the winning conservationist, and the winning arts invited to a future Arete event.

Nazir Kouchele from Benin, the winning conservationist, took his time deciding where the $1,000 donation should go. After some deliberation and a few logistical hurdles getting funds into Benin, he directed the award to Acting for a Smile, a community organisation doing important work in the country. The funds have finally made their way through the system.

It is a small example of something we believe in: putting resources and decisions in the hands of the people closest to the work. We are proud to support Acting for a Smile and glad to see the ripple effects of the Togo workshop still unfolding.

ARTIST FOCUS:

Mário Macilau

Mario Macilau is a multidisciplinary artist and activist based in Maputo, Mozambique, where he was born in 1984. He picked up a camera at 14 while working in one of the city's markets, and went professional in 2007 after trading his mother's mobile phone for a Nikon FM2.

Mário works primarily in black and white, producing long-term photographic projects that explore social conditions, identity, labour, and the environment in Mozambique. One of his most recognised bodies of work, Growing in Darkness, documented the lives of street children in Maputo over several years. He spent time building trust with his subjects before photographing them, a practice he sees as essential to responsible storytelling.

His work has been shown at the 56th Venice Biennale, the Saatchi Gallery in London, the Vitra Design Museum, Lagos Photo, and the Biennale of African Photography in Bamako. He was named one of Foreign Policy's 100 Leading Global Thinkers and his photographs are held in the permanent collection of the Pompidou Centre in Paris.

Mário has said that photography is about more than capturing a moment. It is about the way people see each other, the way people judge, and the way people stereotype cultures. His mission is to give overlooked communities a way to reclaim their own voice and identity.

We are excited to be working with Mário as we plan the Maputo 2027 gathering and all the work and exchanges in the lead up to it.

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WHERE WE FIND INSPIRATION

Gonçalo Mabunda

After Mozambique's civil war ended in 1992, the Christian Council of Mozambique began collecting weapons from communities, recovering over 800,000 firearms through a programme called Transforming Guns into Hoes.

Gonçalo Mabunda, born in Maputo in 1975, takes those deactivated AK-47s, rocket launchers, and shell casings and welds them into thrones, masks, and totemic sculptures. Objects designed to destroy become something beautiful, confrontational, and remade. He was the first Mozambican artist to show at the Venice Biennale, and his work is held at the Centre Pompidou, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

His studio is in Maputo and we very much hope to visit it during the 2027 gathering.

EVENT SPOTLIGHT

61^st VENICE BIENNALE

The 61st Venice Biennale opens in May under the title In Minor Keys, the final curatorial vision of Koyo Kouoh. Kouoh, the founding artistic director of RAW Material Company in Dakar and executive director of Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town, was the first African woman appointed to curate the Biennale. She passed away suddenly in May 2025, but the exhibition will proceed exactly as she conceived it, carried forward by the team she assembled.
The exhibition brings together 111 invited participants from across the world. Kouoh described the Biennale as a "polyphonous assembly of art," drawing on jazz improvisation, Caribbean thought, and the idea of the Creole garden, where diverse practices coexist and nourish one another. Let's hope the sensory and emotional impact leads to renewal and greater solidarity.

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